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Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman Books

Screenwriter

Antkind

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“Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters' arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event.”

LifeWritingPurposeTimeLossEmotionCreativityAdvicePerspectivePerceptionMemoryTraumaStorytellingMeaningCreative ProcessWriting ProcessScreenwritingTipsArtistic Process
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“Comedy is a lie, too, of course. It’s a defense, an aggression. It is a thing created to separate, to say, “I am not like this.” It is Godlike in its judgment and, by definition, the antithesis of empathy. Comedy sits on its throne and states: You are ridiculous. You are pathetic. You are stupid. Your pain amuses me. Most important, I am not you. Even comedy directed at the self, the stand-ups, the Woody Allens of the world, is performed as an act of defense: I am in on the joke that is me, therefore the joke is not me.”

ComedyEmpathyWoody Allen
Book:Antkind
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“Perhaps you are repulsed by me. Well, perhaps you are the one with the problem, not I. Perhaps you are the repulsive one. Perhaps you have never cared enough about anything in your life to weep at its loss. If that is the case, it is I who pity you. You will go through your brutish existence experiencing the small pleasures of taking things that are not yours, going places you are not welcome, sticking your elbow into the legally purchased space of another. Then you will die. Congratulations: That is your life. I hope you are happy with it. I hope you don’t regret, on your deathbed, that you never felt love, or joy, or loss. Yes, loss. There is a profound sweet melancholy in the experience of loss. It is the most delectable and pungent spice on the spice rack of life. Too bad you won’t taste it, buddy. I guess it doesn’t go with burgers and beer.”

HumorLossRepulsive
Book:Antkind
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“What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this. As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time.”

LifeDeath
Book:Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
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“Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that.”

LifeWriting
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“Not much of note in my waking life. People get sick, or don’t. People die, or don’t. I watch TV, or don’t. Sometimes I smoke without remembering lighting up. I continue to go to a deranged hypnotist and try to recall a film by a deceased African-American gentleman. I sell collapsible clown shoes. I eat Slammy burgers. In my waking life, I am not a novelizer, nor will I be many other people as I will in the dreams. I am, while awake in fact, not even fully me. I believe if I had the courage to be completely me, I would be a somewhat more interesting person. I believe people would be drawn to me. I believe I would not be lonely. I cannot bear to believe that what I am while awake is the entirety of me.”

DreamsEntiretyNovelizer
Book:Antkind
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“I do believe you have a wound too. I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that won't be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic. It is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself. But it is the thing that wants to live.”

PeopleIfsWantBelieveShowsInterestingCommonSecretFiveImpossibleWeakWoundsProtectedPatheticLoving You
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out.”

PeopleKnowsWayShouldWritingEnoughStoriesPerspectiveRight NowConfusionTelling The TruthConventionalConventional WisdomSortingFiguring It
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“I really like when critics reveal their subjectivity and their humanity. I prefer it when people say nice things, but if they say not-nice things or things that are critical, I'm open to it and I accept it. I mean, I have to live with it. But I do think there's a dishonesty in not acknowledging that you're a person with an opinion. I think it's almost like a power grab.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMeanPersonsHumanityAcceptingOpinionNiceCriticsCriticalDishonestyNice ThingsSubjectivity
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“Humans are incapable of securely storing high-quality cryptographic keys, and they have unacceptable speed and accuracy when performing cryptographic operations. (They are also large, expensive to maintain, difficult to manage, and they pollute the environment. It is astonishing that these devices continue to be manufactured and deployed. But they are sufficiently pervasive that we must design our protocols around their limitations.)”

HumansDifficultQualityEnvironmentDesignKeysInternetSpeedManageLimitationOperationsPerformingExpensiveDevicesFree SpeechIncapableAstonishingAccuracyHigh QualityProtocol
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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“I'm moving - as a person and as a writer - through time. I'm a different age. I'm thinking about different things. I have different life experiences. I'm trying to get closer to being honest. And by closer I mean that at different ages I have different ideas of what the truth is, and at any point I'm trying to express that at that moment in time.”

ThinkingTryingMeanPersonsIdeasDifferentMomentsAgeMovingHonestTruth IsBeing HonestDifferent ThingsThat MomentLife ExperienceMoments In TimeRough TimesDifferent IdeasDifferent LifeDifferent Ages
Author:Charlie Kaufman
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